Chasing Away the Nightmares
by yellow 14
Summary: Cho is having nightmares about surviving the Battle of Hogwarts. Fortunately, she's married to someone who can help her chase them away. Written for Midnight and Magic as a request back in 2012 and FINALLY up.


Disclaimer: Don't own and never will.

AN: This one was written as a request for Hiaho. Sorry it's running so late, RL gets in the way left, right and centre. Well that and the muse does not want to behave with this. I also wrote this for the Quidditch League round 13 and my prompts are 3: (word) launch 11: (dialogue) "Because you're mental, that's why!" 13: (word) riverbank. As always, my prompts are in italics. (Annoyingly enough, I missed the round!)

It was always the same. Dead bodies, screams of terror and pain. Dark shadows and howling teeth. And always mocking voices and laughter. Always the same.

"It should have been you," a half rotted corpse said as he shuffled towards her. "It was meant to be you, not me."

"Why did I have to die, while you live?" another corpse asked, this time a child of maybe twelve, so mutilated that she couldn't recognise whether it was a boy or a girl.

"We had so much to live for," a decapitated head groaned at her. "So very much. I had so much life and you were little better than a walking corpse."

"That's not true!" Cho protested weakly. "I was overcoming my grief about Cedric! I was-"

"YOU should have died in my place!" the head said sharply, with so much venom that Cho physically recoiled from it. "YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED IN MY PLACE! YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED IN MY PLACE! YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED IN MY PLACE!"

"I didn't kill you!" Cho shouted desperately out at the darkness as she slipped her hand into her pocket for her wand and her hand clasped comfortingly around its familiar shape. "I didn't kill you."

"You spent so long wasting your life. All those hours spent playing Quidditch. All those hours spent crying over someone who was already dead. All those hours spent talking with your friends or dating boys. Oh so very much waste," the first body said to her and Cho winced. "If you had spent that time preparing, we would still be alive."

"If you had spent that time learning to cast spells, the we wouldn't be dead," another voice said and Cho shook her head.

"It wouldn't have changed anything!" she screamed at them. "It wouldn't have changed anything!"

It was futile screaming. It always was. Reasoning with the dead was like reasoning with rocks and just as productive. Yet still she tried. She always tried. She always HAD to try. Suddenly the entire field reverberated with the voices of the dead, as suddenly hundreds, thousands even, began to chant.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED, YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED, YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED, YOU SHOULD HAVE-"

"No, she shouldn't."

Suddenly the dead stopped chanting as a young woman with short light blond hair and green eyes stepped forward. She glared angrily at the bodies around her.

"You are not dead because of her. She isn't alive in your place. She has mourned, like all who have lost loved ones. That is not a crime," she turned and faced Cho with a smile. "You lived and you stood your ground when you could have easily walked away. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

Cho hugged the woman in front of her and the scene slowly began to change. The dark shadows and howling teeth disappeared and another familiar setting took shape. This time however, it was a far more pleasant scene. A _riverbank_ slowly materialised and the sun was shining brightly on the fresh green grass. It was a beautiful scene.

"How…?" Cho began and the woman smiled at her.

"I don't know Cho. This is, as they say, your party," the woman said with a smile. She looked around her. "Hmm. This is the very place you proposed to me," she leaned forward and kissed Cho. "We came here after the _launch_ of a new department within the Ministry of Magic if memory serves correctly."

"Not really a department, more a section of another department really," Cho said with a thoughtful expression on her face. "I'm surprised you didn't remember that. Everything about that day is so fixed in mine that I can remember the scent of Leanne's overdone perfume."

The other woman laughed in amusement.

"I think everything flew out my head when you proposed. I was so happy and so surprised and…and well everything I suppose," she said with a smile. She leaned forward and kissed Cho. "I just remember how beautiful you looked, in your smart dress robes and you were kneeling there on the grass with the ring box in your hand as you asked me to marry you. Time just seemed to slow down."

The scene around them began to dissolve once more and the scene began to change. This time, the two women were in a bustling office. Men and women were hard at work and paper aeroplane memos flew from place to place. It was chaotic order and in the midst of it all, the two women stood unnoticed.

"This is where we first met. I was travelling at the time, trying to get away from my past memories. We were trying to negotiate a new treaty on the use of Dementors. I was sent to organise the paperwork for the Head of my Department," Cho said with a smile. "I remember admiring how you stood there so confident, so sure of yourself…"

"I remember see those beautiful eyes, so deep you could drown in them and your sleek black hair that looked so smooth and perfect," the woman finished and both women smiled at one another. "I didn't realise that we would end up here though."

"I didn't expect to end up here. I was convinced that I was strictly interested in boys," Cho said with a chuckle as the scene began to rearrange itself once more, this time into a different time and a different place.

They were in a field somewhere and the woman looked around curiously. An archaeological dig was underway.

"This," Cho said with a smile, "Is when I realised that I was in love with you. Completely head over heels, impossibly in love with you."

"Urgh, I was covered in dust and mess and-"

"And you were wildly beautiful at the same time," Cho replied with a smile. "I saw you coming away from the site and finally allowed myself to recognise that I loved you."

 _"Because you're mental, that's why!"_ the woman said humorously with a smile and Cho laughed.

"Maybe, but marrying you was probably the sanest thing I've ever done," she said as she felt sleep fading away from her to see the woman in her dreams resting beside her. There were some advantages to falling in love with someone who could literally enter your dreams and that was one of them.

"Pleasant dreams?" she asked with a smile and Cho leaned forward and kissed her.

"With you? Always."

AN: I received this request in 2012 and now (finally) I actually have it up. I hope it was worth the wait anyway, I really need to speed up;D. In the time it has taken me to write this, Hiaho has become Midnight and Magic and even published their own stories.


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